Viper
by Nara Merald
Summary: She always thinks Allen so foolish to assume that it was Dilandau the Dragonslayer and Celena the innocent sister. Celena is not a nice person… she's a Viper.


**Viper**

By Nara Merald

**Summary:** She always thinks Allen so foolish to assume that it was Dilandau the Dragonslayer and Celena the innocent sister. Celena is not a nice person… she's a Viper.  
**Disclaimers:** I do not own Escaflowne, nor do I profit from this story. I do however love the DilandauxCelena pairing, despite how unlikely it actually is.

**Viper**

Celena doesn't like it when people treat her like an Invalid. Celena doesn't like Allen, or Allen's friends. Celena doesn't like Millerna, or Eries, and she'd bet, that if the older sister what's-her-name was alive, she wouldn't like her either. For all the fame surrounding Hitomi, Celena think's she's boring. And Van, Celena laughs at the mere thought of Van.

Celena is not a nice person.

Dilandau once likened her to a Viper, waiting to strike. While Celena and Dilandau are not the same person, were never the same person, they shared the same twisted experiences, the same hatred for their captors, their tormentors, and the same contempt for anyone who doesn't see things like they do.

Celena knows Dilandau can come back, given time, given a body. She yearns to feel his laughter alongside hers, yearns to be back on the battlefield with someone guarding her back, to launch a guymelef, to train her own men.

Instead Allen rewards her with lessons on cooking, the one thing they let her do. They are stupid. Despite allowing Millerna to study medicine, they've curtailed her practises even though she saved Van's life, claiming it unladylike. Celena watches Millerna suffer through her frustration in secret delight- inwardly, Celena hopes Millerna will run away, or revolt against them all, or better still, kill herself… or them.

Her cooking is getting better, but she still likes to burn things for Allen. One, she hates Allen, her tortured mind seeing no proper connections to the big brother she once had. Sometimes, she feels a distubing surge of love and safety, like when Allen has his arms around her. More often, she feels smothered, and restrains herself with a smile, picturing her kitchen knife in Allen's throat.

Celena is a Viper.

Two, when she burns the food, people look at her in pity, which is annoying, but they don't look at her in suspicion. Except when their food arrives on their plate still on fire. But Celena's been a good girl- she only does that once a year- on Dilandau's birthday.

Celena has all of Dilandau's memories, she remembers Chesta indignantly insisting that Dilandau _had_ to have a birthday, and Dallet's voice as tuneless as nails scraping on a board as he sung 'Happy Birthday'.

She remembers Allen and Van, massacring their men, hers and Dilandau's. For Dilandau and she were partners in everything. Fighters when they were growing up. Planners when they were trying to escape the Madoushi. Debators on what was right and wrong. Best friends, worst enemies, lovers… trapped mind to mind like they were, Celena and Dilandau were everything to each other.

Celena knows Folken was experimenting on her and Dilandau… they overheard him once talking about the possibility of a separation both mind and body, and she remembers that she was both frightened and excited at the prospect… a body for Dilandau, but the loss of their inner connection…

However it never got to that… and how she wishes it did. Celena shared Dilandau's utter contempt for Folken Stratagos, the half scientist who never understood their battles, never protected them from the questing Madoushi who eventually ended up bloody and dead.

And now he's gone, and Celena is fiercely fighting despair, biting her lip until it bleeds everymorning, willing herself to be able to hear his mocking voice, his taunts, feel him go insane with the need to slash the life from someone. She half wonders if Dilandau would mock her for this- her weakness; Dilandau detested weakness.

Sometimes Celena steals things, just to see what would happen. She likes to imagine how Dilandau would have reacted, with plenty of scathing comments and little to no pity. She's had 2 maids fired now, but that's ok, because she doesn't like them. Millerna is still banned from the practical applications of surgery, and Celena sneaks in at night to plant false notes and scalpels where Eries will come across them. Of course, Celena doesn't really know much about medicine, so the notes are all made up and pieced together with strange words from the Madoushi, but Eries and Allen haven't studied medicine either.

Celena feels a certain satisfaction in hating her own brother and especially that bitch Eries, when they believe their own inflated suspicions over Millerna's miserable protests.

Somedays are better than others, like when Celena befriends a spider. Celena analyses her first reaction, which is to crush it, because the poison of the spider could prove a threat to her. Celena cocks her head, thinking how amusing it is that SHE could be threatened by a spider. She admires it, thinking it both pure and deadly, overestimated and underestimated at the same time. "Don't worry, I won't kill you because of my lack of strength… I don't fear," She smiles, watching it walk away. After this revelation, Celena never kills insects. It horrifies Eries, Millerna and that disgusting cat of Van's, but Allen chooses to see it as her not wanting to kill. She even begs him not to let anyone kill an insect or a deadly spider within her presence.  
They see it as a good, if odd sign. Secretly, she hopes her spiders will destroy them all. If not, at least they should be able to live free, unlike her or Dilandau.

Celena has to work on a small scale, with no allies. If Dilandau were here… no, when Dilandau comes back, they will run together, and the world will learn to fear them, respect them.  
Until then… she must wait for the perfect time to strike.


End file.
